Management Thoughts for Entrepreneurs

New Entrepreneurs like to be in “total” control. It is difficult for them to acknowledge that other people can do as good, if not a better, job than they can. They also believe that if they share their ideas with people, someone may steal them and take advantage.

It is all about trust. However, it is less about trusting other people, but more about not trusting themselves enough.

Entrepreneurs do take significant risks in the business sense – that is embark on new ideas, in an uncertain environment, with a not fully developed product or service, no ready customers, lack of adequate funding and so on. They are good at that.

When it comes to relying on other people, their risk-taking is limited. While they may trust family members, it is difficult for starting Entrepreneurs to trust outsiders. So what is the problem?

In my opinion, the issue is that Entrepreneurs do not have sufficient trust in themselves to identify, train, and coach the right people to delegate key responsibilities. Sometimes loners, people management skills are the least ones they have developed. This often creates a situation where Entrepreneurs end up performing all key tasks and stretching themselves too thin.

Entrepreneurs need to train and then trust themselves to make appropriate people decisions so they can then trust those people to do the things right. The sooner they learn to do that the faster their growth and success.

It is always a balance as to when an Entrepreneur needs to let go and delegate responsibility of the business to someone else. If one leaves too early, the Mission and Vision might remain unaccomplished per the Entrepreneur’s original intent. Hanging on too long might jeopardize long-term success.

Leaving the business to pursue other ventures is all dependent on to whom the Entrepreneur is relinquishing control. If the Entrepreneur has built up a strong leadership team and a solid foundation to accomplish the Mission, delegating responsibility to run the business to a competent CEO is prudent. However, if the leadership team and the new CEO are not seasoned and well-developed, the Entrepreneur risks a lot by leaving too soon.

Hanging on too long can be an issue also. If the business has grown beyond the capability of the Entrepreneur to successfully run it, it might be damaging to hang on to power. A new CEO is absolutely necessary then. Alternatively, if the Entrepreneur has recruited a solid leadership team and a likely CEO and trained them, hanging on will be demotivating to the capable successor CEO and the team as they cannot show off their potential.

If the Entrepreneur runs the business on without a secondary leadership team and wants to continue doing so, he/she does not face the question of leaving too early or hanging on. But is that continued retention of control achieving well the Mission and Vision of the business?

Customer service is what really differentiates Entrepreneurs from competition. What are you doing to win that war?

Certain companies go out of their way to provide excellent service by promoting a phone number to call for live conversations. Others do everything online and make it difficult to interact with a human person.

Most Entrepreneurs realize the value of excellent customer service and attempt to emphasize that in their company. It is in their website and brochures and employees are instructed to treat customers right.

But, how many Entrepreneurs have adopted providing excellent customer service as one of their strategic objectives? In order to permeate the importance of customer service in your organization it has to be treated as a key goal of the company.

Like all other strategic objectives, there should be a specific SMART goal(s) related to customer service with measurable benchmarks and periodic tracking of progress. The management team should come up with ongoing programs to improve customer service and implement them throughout the company.

You can enhance customer service and beat competition only if you treat it as a strategic goal.